A society of awake beings wouldn’t be possible now, as things stand. Not because current society stands in its way (or because we have fluoride in our water), but because awakening/enlightenment/truth realisation is something you do, it’s not a subject that you can learn or that can be taught. Where would such an activity even take place, assuming it would be possible at all? In class-rooms, in schools, in guru “groups”? At somebody’s feet[1]?

No, the realisation can only be gotten at alone. It’s not something one human, one being can pass on to another. Schools and groups are stepping stones, that can sometimes be important pit stops along the way. But what you will get from them, if anything at all, won’t ever be what you will go to them seeking. True learning can only begin once you acknowledge that you can be the only authority. It’s not that you should be the only authority for knowledge or truth, it’s that when it comes to yourself, you can be the only authority. That’s inviolable by definition. It’s extremely easy to verify for yourself if schools or teachers are actually effective at this. Wouldn’t you think a lot of people should possess this by now if they were? Let’s assume[2] they do have the “truth”, then wouldn’t their method be obviously faulty, because it sure doesn’t seem to be getting across. School is compulsory, after all, in most places, but that doesn’t mean most people possess even a basic understanding of chemistry. Just because your parents potty-trained you doesn’t mean that as a human, the only way to get information is from another human being. Anything worth knowing can only be discovered and glanced at by yourself.

The moment you’ve taken somebody else’s words as “truths” or try to walk in somebody else’s path, is the moment you’ve derailed your own. It’s your journey and you already know that things can only be understood for yourself. You just need to extrapolate a bit and apply this to what you come across on the path you’re on.

But hey, there’s no rush!

￼[1] Does a person kneeling genuinely at somebody else’s feet seem like an awake or realised being? No? Than why do so many believe that throwing yourself at somebody’s feet is part of the process?[2] Given the current state of affairs, that’s an incredibly far fetched assumption.

The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive.
[…]
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.

I now have the beginning of an understanding as to why death is so perplexing and as to why the thought of my own demise is so unshakeable. From the context of the human world, the only thing that can be said for sure is that I exist. That’s the only truth that can be stated; anything and everything else can only be assumed, if one takes the questions in the inquiry back to their logical foundation. How can something about which it can’t be said that it’s known for certain to be true, falsify the only thing about which it can? An apparent contradiction. The key needed is the information that I exist IS and CAN only be at the present tense and can’t be conjugated; I exist doesn’t require or imply the existence of time. But, to have the notion that “you are going to” or that “you will die”, requires and implies the existence of time. I exist is a moment, death is a moment, but “I will die” requires time, it implies future. A “moment” is thought of as a unit of time, but a moment is infinitely small, it’s infinite, it’s nothing and thus can’t be something because it doesn’t exist and as such can’t be a unit of anything and can’t, accordingly, be a unit of time.

No questions or answers, only information that makes other information go away. Seen and understood not to be.

For the most part what’s called news is not really new, it’s just a variation on the context. News revolves largely around reporting on the atrocities of men: murders, wars, rapes and so on. But these are by no means new, they’ve been going on since before we became modern humans.

What’s really new and worth reporting on, are the things that human society has managed to accomplish only very recently, when compared to the lifespan of humanity. Things like space walks, amusement parks, roller-coasters, computers, aqua-parks, bungee jumping, skydiving, the internet in all its existence-changing glory and, to our delight, countless others.

Not only are these things new, but they are extremely fragile and could disappear due to only a slight shift at a more basic level of the human existence. Whereas murder, rape and war would most likely continue to exist, even thrive, if the human situation took a turn for the worst.

It’s true of this world that no man can see something because another man is describing it to him, each can know only what he has the ability to see. But a better way of phrasing that, a complete and more descriptive way, would be to say that each sees only what he allows himself to see.

From all indications everybody knows the truth at some level, even if it appears that the majority know it only at their most primordial. It never enters their consciousness, it’s not even close to it. Not because they lack the ability to see the truth, but because they have unbelievable mechanisms in place that don’t allow them to see it. Yet the truth seems to exist in each individual. The realisation of the truth, (unchangeable wether or not one allows for it), or its proximity to one’s consciousness, is not a matter of accomplishment, it’s a matter of allowing for it.

Take an example. By now, almost everybody is aware that other cultures with different values than his own exist and has some sort of knowledge of those values. From inside his culture those values seem obviously false, but from inside the other culture his own values seem obviously false. Both sets of values seem obviously false from the outside, from a third culture, or better yet from outside any culture. No culture is superior to any other. None of them matter. Nothing does. Yet the vast, vast majority live and die inside cultures.

The truth is very obvious, it’s not a matter of being able to see it, it’s a matter of how much of it are you allowing yourself to see. Of allowing the right question to enter your mind, and then discovering it has no answer, thus, that the question itself was a mirage.

P.S.Claiming a theoretical understanding of the concept creates another belief. But without the actual allowance it’s worse than nothing at all. It’s better to have nothing at all than an obstacle in the way of you allowing yourself to see. Otherwise, it’s just another belief to overcome, just another question to ask.

People who consider themselves smart say it’s a bad idea to start a conversation on the topic of religion. What they fail to realise however, is that all conversations are about religion, because it’s all a belief system.

And extremely few people have experiences outside of the belief system.

The dictionary defines allergies as an “exaggerated or pathological immunological reaction (…) to substances, situations, or physical states that are without comparable effect on the average individual” or as “a feeling of antipathy or aversion”. According to this definition it could be said that people are severely allergic to the truth. Luckily they have multiple, seemingly impenetrable, layers of protection and the vast majority are never exposed to it. The diseased i.e., those who come in contact with the truth, are so rare, that their minority is not only negligibly small, it’s so small that most of those who claim to have an interest in the matter, can’t recognise them and don’t even realise they exist.

There seems to be agreement around the opinion that art is the pursuit of all things beautiful, the attempt to convey beauty. However, that’s like saying “Art… well… actually… we have no idea what it’s supposed to be”, as beauty is entirely subjective. At some level everyone knows this, that’s probably why there’s not even an attempt at general human consensus. There are norms and trends, but never a convention; that should give you an idea about the state of things.

But art[1] can be understood to mean the attempt to express the truth (the pursuit of, and extremely rarely the discovery of it). When viewed this way, it becomes a very special thing among human endeavours; the one that seems to define the existence of the species.

But, of course, all endeavours are pointless, they’re all just a means to kill time.

￼[1] When a word becomes murky, it stops being particularly useful, as it can’t be called upon to express something honestly, succinctly or directly. I see that happening when its meaning gets muddied and when what it intended to convey isn’t any longer clear. That’s the reason why I’m not particularly fond of that murky word.

What would it seem like if, after meeting someone and starting a conversation on a subject, that someone would come up with something related to the topic but not related to what you said and have the impression he’s agreeing or contradicting you because he does or doesn’t agree with what he made up and now attributes to you. And if you would try to explain to said person, that you didn’t say anything like that, he would most likely ignore you and continue to agree or disagree with what he came up with (usually a very standard issue) and insist he’s agreeing or disagreeing[1] with you.

Wouldn’t that seem strange?

It seems very strange to me, even now as I’ve come to accept it as the most common form of “dialogue”.

[1] Usually the agreement is much harder to notice than the disagreement.

The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

I’m an outsider by choice, but not truly. It’s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out. I’d rather be in, in a good system. That’s where my discontent comes from: being forced to choose to stay outside.

Imagine a new born baby with the ability to read, a human consciousness blank aside from this ability. The baby is standing in front of an unimaginably large bookshelf. A book shelf that contains within it all the books that have been and could be written. He can read any book he desires, he doesn’t know any rules, he isn’t limited by anything. The baby extends his hand and reaches for a book, he picks it up, opens it and starts reading. For him reading is the same as seeing, he doesn’t distinguish between the two; he’s not aware of the fact he’s reading, the same way you’re not aware of your heart beating, or your lungs breathing.

He finishes the first book and puts it back, again, there are no rules, he could pick-up any book as his second. Yet he choses a book close to the first book. He does that for his third and fourth and will continue to do so for the rest of his life, he’ll only read books close to what he has already read. In most cases there won’t be a connection between the books aside from their physical proximity; but that won’t matter to him, he’ll become the connection as long as the books are close enough. The summary of those books will become what he will view as himself, even though he’ll never stop reading.

This describes the life path of most people; and almost nobody ever stops reading.

I’m calling these writings Letters from Myself. I’ve been calling them that ever since I started collecting them in one place. That’s what I see in them, letters (writings) from a past me to a future me, if that future me happens to come. A link between what I am seeing and have seen, to what I’ll look upon. It’s not a diary as these are not writings about myself[1], they’re about connections that come when I look upon the world. I won’t pretend to understand where they come from, or try to bestow any relevance to them, as I know that there never is any to be found. I just write because I can’t not write.

For most of them the future me already came, and went, and sometimes came again. The chances of a future state of consciousness looking upon them are high, considering I can be disconnected from what I’ve written just a few hours after having written it. From then on, from the point the disconnect happens, I read them as if they were new to me, which I guess they are, at least new for reading. So I read them as anybody else would, except for the fact that I can totally identify with them and in most cases feel what’s going to come.

In the mean time, before I’ll read them again, I’ve decided to make them public. Enjoy.

Update: I write and receive two types of letters to and from myself. I classify them according to the viewpoint I perceive myself to be writing from: from outside the human world, looking at the human world in general, as a general view is all I have from the outside; or from the inside of the human world looking at particulars of the human world. Till now I believed this difference to justify the separation and publication of the two on two different websites. But knowing that a) in a way, because I made the journey that took me out of the human world, I can’t really be inside it; and b) I’m in the human condition/state momentarily, meaning that I can never really get a viewpoint from outside it; I decided that there really isn’t any difference between the two types of writings[2], and thus there’s no reason to keep them separated on two different sites. As such, I’ll suspend the existence of the second site (or rather I should say first site, as that one has been in existence for a couple of years longer than this one) and move all my existing writings from that site to this one. I’ll date the writings I’m going to move over with the date they were initially finalised on.

P.S. : Regarding the way the writings are going to be dated. After considering the issue, I decided to post them with the date I’ve written them, in case they need only minor edits and spell checks before I’m willing to post them. In case the writings are at the idea stage, or if they need a lot more to be added (or rewritten) before I can hope that anybody aside from myself can make any sense of them, I’ll post them with the current date. For this reason I believe that if you have the intention of keeping up with the new writings I’ll be posting, Twitter is a better choice than following the site itself, as sometimes I’ll post new writings, but date them a few years or months back. However, I’ll tweet after making each new writing public, and they’ll appear in that order.

[1] They wouldn’t be about myself even if I wouldn’t be aware of the non-existence of such an entity aside from what I can be bothered to summon.

[2] Maybe this inside/outside business will have you thinking that there are two separate states to my existence and that I undergo some-kind of a transition between the two; but that’s not the case, “from the outside” refers to a view from which I recognise all things to be equally irrelevant, while “from the inside” refers to a view in which I pretend that the things I’m considering or expressing at a given moment are more relevant than others, a thing I do even while maintaining the awareness of the fact that that’s not the case.

I will never understand how you do it. Get up and sell your soul like that. And I’ll never understand how they can encourage you like that. But I guess for them, and you, it seems normal. Everyone around you is selling their soul. It’s like they never had one to begin with.

My opinions are as useless as anybody else’s. The universe/consciousness flows through us when we speak. We are no more makers of the speech/thoughts than the radio is the maker of the stations it’s able to receive. The rest is just opinion. And opinion is as relevant as static on the radio.

Life, considered as particular to planet Earth in the, as of yet known universe, is indeed extremely rare, thus special.

Humans among all life forms seem to be special, as the sole possessors of an increased ability to drastically alter the initial state of their environment, through the use of an ever increasing set of tools such as fire and articulate language.

Human life however is not special. A human is as much alive as any other living entity; the cells and tissues that make up that life, even if more complex, or more complexly organised than others, are no more alive than those in algae, snails or squirrels. So even though humans might be special, human life isn’t rare, more precious or holier than any other life, for the simple fact that at its essence it’s the same, and the word life by definition describes that essence.

All life is equal in the face of death, be it human, squirrel or moss.

The meaning of art and artist are thus revealed in a simplified way. The artist is the one who creates because he can’t not create. Art is that which is created, and created takes on the meaning of that which couldn’t have been not brought into existence.

All else is imitation brought forward by attention seekers. Some of the attention seekers are really good imitators.

I will not use the mathematical sign for infinity, as mathematically infinity has come to mean something else, something other than true infinity.

Nothing is the only way to understanding everything, nothing is everything for the simple reason that by viewing everything as a sum of parts you would never be able to grasp it, you would see an infinite array of parts and everything as a whole would elude you forever. Everything is one, it’s not multitudes; nothing is one, it’s not multitudes. Everything is Nothing.

E=N.

Nothing matters, really nothing matters, it’s about how you place the accent. All this complexity and yet the answer to everything can be found in the placement of an accent.

Humans need to change their relationship to ideas in the same way most human males need to change their views on the relationships they have with the woman/women that they live with. People don’t own their ideas, in the same way that men don’t own their women. And like women, I believe that no half-decent idea will be caught hanging around somebody that obsessively thinks he owns them. At best humans can be spectators to ideas which they can subsequently take note of, interpret through their personal filters (which for the majority can be more or less equated with social filters) and have a foundation on which to build upon afterwards; what they build, of course, varies immensely, from projects to colonise Mars and new erotic shows in Amsterdam to plans for invading other countries.

Of course there’s a problem with the entire notion of ownership, but I believe that the view of ownership that we impose on our ideas is by far the most damaging, because a lot of ideas we think we own, become over time, because we think we own them, preconceived notions. And preconceived notions wind up owning us, in the sense that they alter us, prevent us from seeing the truth and ultimately prevent us from seeing the ideas that we would otherwise be able to see.

But like I said the whole notion of ownership is fundamentally flawed, it is a paradox. How can that be? you ask. Well the explanation is quite simple. Ownership implies two definite parties, the owned and the owner, between which the relationship of ownership exists. But here the problem lies, because at least one of the parties can’t be defined, it’s actually undefinable. Because, if for property and other things we view ourselves as owners of, we can come up with fairly believable, or at least workable, practical definitions, when it comes to us, human beings, there’s no logical, complete explanation that can be given. We can try to squeeze ourselves into labeled molds, but of course there’s always going to be something left out of that mold, but which is still undeniably part of ourselves. So how can we attach a relationship between an entity that we can’t define and another, shouldn’t we first try to figure out what that entity is and isn’t before relating it to something else? And shouldn’t this be our top priority, considering that the entity in question is us?

We know that we’re alive, but we don’t know what life is or how it originated. We know that we have consciousness, awareness, although we can’t exactly say what that is. We are aware of the fact that seemingly we’re the only life form that can take observed information and abstract it in the form of language and writing, thus enabling us to also exist in a separate world from that of the material, observable universe; but we don’t really know the meaning or underlying function of this ability. We know we exist in a seemingly material place, the universe, but we’re still unaware of its fundamental characteristics. So, if we’re unable to explain the place we exist in, the fundamental character of our being, its abilities and the abilities that make us unique when compared to other living beings, how can we possibly try to define ourselves? And if we can’t define ourselves, how can “we” possibly say we own something? Who exactly is owning, and what?

And this last question, the “what”, further emphasises the paradox of ownership when it comes to ideas, because we won’t be able to give plausible explanation to either the owner nor the owned. What exactly are ideas and where do they come from? Can anybody really answer these questions?

But the thing is we don’t have to, all we have to do is figure out what we are, without letting anything false get in; and all other questions will fade away.

Sex has become a taboo (meaning that it’s purposefully and systematically dressed up in a veil of shame, hidden, avoided, euphemized) as a result of the fact that the intentions of the powers that be (or at least the reflexes of the current powers that be - meaning they don’t really understand why they’re doing it, they’re just doing it because their fathers, grandfathers and recent ancestors did it) is to keep sex related strictly to its reproductive function.

Traditionally and according to the stated morality of the majority of individuals (of course, practiced morality is an entirely different thing) sex is to happen only between a man and his legally and religiously wedded[1] wife, and the details are to be kept between the two and are not to be shared with anybody else.

Any deviation from this strict rule is unacceptable. Sex that happens outside of the institution of marriage (marriages apparently are institution - like banks and the presidency - good thing other institutions don’t fail as often, or do they?); sexual self pleasuring (otherwise known as masturbation); same sex sex (commonly known as homosexual sex - although this name seems to leave out lesbian sex - probably because the ruling male elite doesn’t find lesbians as offensive as homosexuals); sex that involves more than two people of opposite sexes (even if the core couple is married); anal sex or sex that involves any other orifice besides the vagina being penetrated by anything other than the penis (oral sex seems to have become, in the last few decades, more acceptable in most cultures and totally acceptable in some); paying for sex; having sex for money; interracial sex, sometimes even if the couple is married (although even if opposition arises, it’s not as public now, and the majority of the protests take place before the wedding);filming a sexual event; sex that involves animals, dead people or underaged people are all perverted, highly shameful and punishable.

Don’t you just love the word perverted? It sounds so heavy. Frankly, I can’t even figure out what the hell it means, to me it’s just one of those words that keeps you going around in definition circles. Check the dictionary if you need exemplification[2].

So according to the moral establishment sex is the “sacred” means of inseminating a woman, and any resulting living foetus should be viewed as equally sacred and untouchable. Viewing sex as a means for pleasure or anything else is WRONG and should be in one way or another punished and corrected. Of course, the extent of the shame and the punishment that go with each “perversion” is relative to the culture in which it takes place. However, mostly it’s the details that vary, as the core beliefs are often the same.

Regarding underaged sex I must make a clarification. I don’t approve of pedophilia in any form. But to me pedophilia means having sex with a child that hasn’t reached sexual maturity. And even though most people agree on this in principal, there’s still a lot of guys going to jail because, on their drunken night out they picked up a hot chick in the club, who willingly went home with them, but later turned out to be 15,16 or 17 (sometimes even younger). That’s just stupid and hypocritical. If a girl had her first period and is mentally ready to have sex, no law should prevent her from doing so. Same goes for teenaged guys, although these kind of problems mostly seem to revolve around girls. This is made even more ridiculous by the fact that until relatively recently, in western culture, and even today in many other cultures around the world, children as young as 11 − 12 are forced to marry and expected to “consume” said marriage shortly after. This is considered highly moral if it’s in accordance with local custom, as it’s a manifestation of the will of their owner, ah… pimp, sorry, I meant to say parent, more specifically father.

Also I din’t include sex without consent in the list above, because to me sex without consent is not a form of sex, it’s simply rape. Rape can take many forms and in this case we would be talking about sexual rape, and that’s a form of rape and not a form of sex. I don’t approve of rape in any form. And although sexual rape is probably the worst kind of rape, sadly, there are a lot of other forms of rape that happen a lot more frequently than sexual rape and that not a lot of people seem interested in preventing. Sometimes they even go unnoticed. Maybe because a lot of times those committing the rapes are men who hold some form of social power, even if it’s only on a family level.

My point is that this taboo, and the lack of an honest discussion that it causes, leads to a state of affairs that, like many others, needn’t be this way. It creates contradictions between the stated values of an individual and his/hers actual actions which, like all similar contradictions, don’t do anybody any good. I guess in the end, nobody really understands why consensual sex, which creates a form of pleasure for both/all parties involvedis supposed to be bad. They just go along with this status quo, because as with all others, nobody cares until they’re affected personally.

But hey, the dream is not supposed to be consistent it’s just supposed to keep people from waking up. And in that regard, it’s doing an impeccable job.

[1] In this regard the religious side of things is more relevant, probably as a result of the fact that in the scheme of things religion came first and has a more constant presence in the lives of religious people.

[2]Who exactly has the authority to judge normalcy and acceptability regarding sexual encounters between two willing adults?

Picture humanity in an apartment building, a high rise tower. Most people don’t get past the level of existence where their purpose is to enable themselves to function, to provide fuel for the biological machine. But some get a glimpse of the next level, and realize that there might be more to life as a human on planet Earth. But in the process of digging the hole through one’s personal ceiling, to catch a glimpse of the next level, a mess of rubble will inevitably be made. Now, this mess is of no concern for those who want to move forward through the ceiling, to the next level and perhaps on to the next (extremely few will make it to the higher levels, and only very few of those will brave the remaining levels on to the roof). But this climb is discomforting, as there’s very few things to aid you, the rubble always falling in your face, and you’re leaving everything that you have ever known behind. Most people are attached enough to comfort to never embark on such a journey. But still, there’s quite a few who make holes in the ceiling to look up to the next levels, not go through the hole onto the next level, but just sit back within their comfort zone, content with the notion that there’s more to the world than their own level.

And this is about them, about those who from the comfort of their own level sing songs through the hole and carve statues to and for the imagined beings of the next level(s). Those who move forward, will not, and need not worry about the rubble they leave behind, but for the ones that stay, the rubble will now take up a lot of their space, a lot of their freedom to move. And that creates an inefficient situation. But somehow a lot of them don’t even seem to acknowledge the rubble and carry on as if it wasn’t there, even if it fills up a big part of their room and it’s even pressing down on their backs. Their space is obstructed and so is their ability to move within it, and sing songs or carve statues to and for the upper levels and their imagined dwellers. Now a lot of them have a sense of some obstruction, but either they don’t identify it with the rubble or can’t bring themselves to do anything about it. And this is obviously inefficient for them, and because almost everybody except the ones in question can notice or sense their obstruction, it is discouraging to those who have yet to make a hole in their own ceiling to take a peek at the next level, and unsettling to those who have managed to go through a few more levels, but then stopped for whatever reason, because from their vantage point, the people singing with rubble in their lungs and on their back come through as screams.

Everybody is in a way or another affected by this, except of course those who are moving on to even higher levels, who don’t take a lot of notice anymore of anything coming from below, and for whom the screams would be as irrelevant as anything else they left and are leaving behind.

A car sees its purpose as getting more gas, as that’s the thing that keeps it alive. But the truth, within this context, is of course that we created the car so we can travel faster between two points in space. But for a car letting itself be filled with humans and be driven is, of course, what it needs to do in order to survive, it’s the car’s “job".

And that’s why it is so important that we don’t get too caught up in what we perceive to be our job(s), to the point where we lower our understanding and forget what our real purpose is.

It’s like when you set out to be creative but your room is all messed up, in a shape that wouldn’t allow you to be creative, so you start your creation process by tidying up your room. But you have to engage in this activity only as much as it’s required to enable the proper functioning of the process, without getting so caught up in the process as to forget that your real purpose was to create.

In the context of the car analogy, we who live on a higher plain of existence, know the truth about the car’s purpose. But I feel that somehow our collective, and in most cases individual, level of existence is not high enough to see the truth about our own purpose. And that’s why we mistakenly tend to identify it with our jobs, because that is what gives us sustenance and enables us to keep functioning on a biological level. But that’s as ridiculous as saying that a car’s purpose is to burn gas.

True meaning, as a human on Planet Earth, is to create, to invent and by doing so, to speed up evolution. Why? Because if nothing else, we are part of the Earth’s nature and the purpose of Earth’s nature, above everything else, is to evolve. Extinction is just a way to clear the stage and make more room for something that has proven itself to posses a better design. And so it is in human history as well, both social and personal. But extinction creates fear, we are afraid of our own extinction; and that evolution, change, might lead to it. However we must remember that all change is evolution, because nothing is wrong, nothing can be wrong, so all change is by definition for the better.

Create, create, create.

Change, change, change.

But then again who said that the assumption that we’re humans on planet Earth is true?

Even though at its inception communism was devised as a way for the average man to “get a better deal” in life, a fairer, more equal chance, if you will, it is arguably capitalism that offers the better chance to the average man (if it’s done with at least a relatively appropriate degree of fairness). The better chance has to be related to something, has to be relative to another person, because otherwise it’s meaningless. A better chance compared to what, and who? Of course the average man doesn’t need a better chance relative to your other average man, he already has that, he has and had that in any social system. What he needs is a fairer chance relative to the man who is better off than him, and has, in most cases, been born better off than him, the rich guy.

The way communism seeks (mostly sought) to implement this is by striping all the rich guy’s assets, money and social standings. Then, more often than not, to imprison and even to kill him. But what then? Well obviously to build up a new social system in place of the old, having at its core the principle that all men should have equal chances in life (or at least that’s the theory - I’ll lay off the judgement of it for now). But there’s a catch, more like a law of nature than a “catch”, but still - every system needs an overseer, or what you might call a leader, and by definition the overseer/the overseers can’t have the same status as the average man; and this is where the problems with communism start.

Now, a human social system is first and foremost a resources distribution system, or what you might call an economy. Societies are not ruled by and because of politics, the systems that govern societies are their resource distribution systems, their economies - politics are just subsystems of that system - the subsystem that determines how the leaders, the organisers of the economic system are put in place, given their authority, and what they’re most likely to do once they have the authority (generally to use it to safeguard and strengthen the system that gave them the authority in the first place). That’s why I believe that in contemporary times, democracy is no longer a viable term[1] and it should be replaced with the term capitalistic-democracy, meaning a capitalist economic system that elects its leaders (organisers) by democratic vote.

But it’s not the democratic vote that gives the average man a better chance in a capitalistic-democratic system, because compared with the total number of people, very few organisers/leaders are needed, it’s the capitalism part that does so. Because in capitalism the average man can accumulate wealth, and thus make a bidding for everything that the other, “made” guys, control - political power and influence, ownership of different kinds of property, and generally all that life has and will have to offer. And this is the real beauty of it - in capitalism you don’t need a big revolution to put things straight for the small guy, every “small” guy has the chance to make his own personal revolution if he’s willing and able (consider Steve Jobs or the Google guys). Money can be bought with a lesser amount of money (a.k.a. trade - of goods or perceived values) andmoney can be made (even though some might say increasingly harder) through ingenuity, perseverance and most of all luck. And in this, the hope of the average man lies, even if most of them don’t see it.

But, on the other hand, how do you fight in a system of pure ideology, where the mere act of questioning or acknowledging that you want to fight makes you an outsider of the system, punishable as the system sees fit?

Beware all those children of the west, brought up in capitalism that dream of communism, or any other system they haven’t experienced, but have the tendency to romanticise. Don’t seek to replace capitalism, as no matter how faulty you might think it to be, the faults were created and allowed to take shape because of human nature. Nobody invented it, nobody laid out all its rules before hand. It took shape and rose to the top from values of equal chances (more or less, definitely a lot more than in other systems). Don’t seek to eliminate it, because if it’s eliminated out of ideology (principles, rather than a true need) it will most likely be replaced with an ideological system, and all that ideological systems manage to accomplish better is to try to hide and justify the greed of the (new) elite behind ideology (no matter how great the system(s) sound(s) in theory before they’re implemented). At least in capitalism the greed is more or less out in the open, plain to see to anybody with the ability and interest to see it. If people feel the urge to fight to change something (I’m not saying that they should if they don’t), they should direct their energies towards finding ways to make capitalism better and fairer, instead of thinking of replacing it with something based on ideology. Something that would surely prove a lot worse if allowed to run its course.

There are a lot of places left in the human world that could use a revolution[2], but there’s also a lot of places where revolutions are no longer needed, where all that would be needed would be to keep the organisers/rulers of the system in check, to ensure that they’re doing their jobs at least part of the time[3]. But the fact remains that revolutions sound a lot grander, and have a lot more appeal to certain areas of the public, especially if you haven’t yet thought of an alternative to the system you’re trying to overthrow.

[1] I don’t even know if it ever was, although democracy in ancient Greece was quite different from what we have now.

[2] The word revolution is being used a lot recently to describe revolts.Of course, some words change their meanings over time, or gain extra meanings, however, in this case, it’s an exaggeration of the meaning in order to make the current revolts seem more than what they are. When you’re using the word revolution you’re implying a similarity between the revolts of today, and the revolutions of the past. However, the revolutions of the past became revolutions only when they managed to replace the systems they were revolting against with new system, i.e. the definition of the word. Ironically, the biggest disservice that this improper use of the term is doing, is to the revolt itself, even if the people revolting are the ones most tempted to use the word revolution to describe their revolt. As with anything, calling something a thing that it’s not before it reaches that status usually makes it stop before reaching that status. Just so that we’re clear, changing the leaders of a system, but not replacing the system itself doesn’t qualify as a revolution either, it’s simply a case of elections by popular revolt.

[3] I’m not referring to the hope for honest organisers/leaders with no personal interests, as that would be totally unrealistic. Regardless of what they promise in order to get elected, why would anybody want to become an organiser/leader if he or she would not be motivated by the possibility of personal gain?

I believe it’s important to make art, particularly visual art - movies, games, illustrations, graphic novels about how awful the world could end up being. Not by a freak event, but by simply following some of its current trends; so that we’ll hopefully know to avoid those paths if they show signs of intensifying.

It has been said that children are born out of Love, but everybody took it as a metaphor. It’s really actually not the case. There’s no reason to take it as a metaphor. Love isn’t a feeling, described as such in comparison with any other of the so-called feelings, but is in fact another dimension of existence, that’s why it’s practically impossible to describe using human terms, human comparisons. Even more so considering that all other feelings are fear based and Love is something else. It’s tempting to say it’s the opposite, the opposite of fear or of hate derived from fear. But it’s not the opposite, opposites (if there would be such things) cancel each other out. Love doesn’t cancel anything. Of course you can feel its existence, its presence, but looking at the other experiences we call feelings, Love can not be called a feeling. And as it has no relationship with them, it can not be categorized with them. They are something, Love is something else.

The physical act of sex, which sometimes is and can be called making Love (as it shall be revealed by the following explanation), is a way of opening a portal into a different state of being, if the experience between two people is strong enough to shatter the human/physical perception of the world for the two. This different state of being can sometimes be the dimension of the so-called Love*.

For those in the context of such an occurrence the main thing they will recognize, and be able to relate to subsequently, will be the shattering of their continuity, the continuity of their human existence**. Beyond this observation anything else relating to the occurrence itself is irrelevant to describe.

So in this light, the act of having sex is the act of making the human side of a child, which results in the body being created. If the sexual act*** is accompanied with the act of making Love, which is to say that if the two partners have the ability to open up a portal to the dimension of Love, by first shattering their human continuity, then through it comes a soul**** that completes the human body of the newly created child. It’s sort of attached to it and grows with it - and so the children of Love are born.

And in comparison to the children of Love most of the people born today (who are born without their parents being able to achieve the occurrence of opening the portal to Love, in the making of the physical act of sex) seem empty soulless beings that just populate the Earth. And the offsprings of these beings are the ones that made sex taboo, that made sex a supposedly bad thing that you would want to keep hidden and never talk about. So that it would be harder and harder to discover what you can do with it. That with it, through it, you can uncover the portal toward Love.

Those who, in the last generation, benefited from the changing of the tide in this respect, toward, at least for now, the liberation of the physical act itself (not necessarily its implication in the case of most people), tend to forget the restrictions imposed not so long ago.

Now the children of Love can come back.

*Love truly is a “magical” word. That’s why most people, when learning a language, are interested in learning that language’s approximation/translation of it. It truly is a thing that can be called a name, as the word is just a sound or two, which has nothing to do with the actual thing. But the sounds (or their written representation) make you envision it. Like with the name of a person, which has nothing to do with the actual person, but which brings the image of that particular person in your mind. But even more so with Love. (Of course all words and their corresponding objects/events have this quality to a certain extent, but only some can be called names)

** Maybe this hints to why humans have such an obsession to interfere with their continuity. Getting drunk, getting high, the practice of yoga, self mutilation, combat, self isolation, etc.

***Sex act, in general if you would like it to, but at least in this context, refers to the penetration of a vagina by a penis, the actual orgasm and the insemination. Everything else (oral sex, anal sex, gay sex and any other type of sex you can think of) is just sexual play. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with sexual play (as of course there’s nothing wrong with anything in general), but for a consistent language, at least in this context, we must make the distinction between the two.

**** Of course, soul is just a word, and can mean whatever you want it to mean. In this context its meaning is a bit more focused than the multitude of meanings it can posses to various people in various circumstances. However, it still could be substituted by a number of different words.

Nothing that can be said in words is worthwhile saying. Using the encrypted oral language we drift away more and more from the world in which things just are, the world of direct experience. And this alienation from what is true into a world of symbols, a world of classified “exactitudes”, leads to going around in circles or dead ends. As you cannot hope to explain an infinite world of existence with a given number of symbols. And thus you will end up limiting the world to only what can be classified by using those given symbols.

We are the things behind the thoughts, behind the shapes of the material world, as all the shapes of the material world are the results of thoughts. We are the ones that make up the building blocks of thoughts, that hold them up and put them together. Then each makes up his own version of the material flow that has nothing to do with the initial building blocks. And if I were to enter in the realm of material approximation I would say that this flow is like a stream, like a river that has a birthplace and a sea towards which it flows. But it doesn’t matter how the river flows or what valleys it crosses and sculpts on its way, that’s why in the material world everything is true, nothing is wrong (that is the God of the material world).

The starting point and the sea are one and the same and that is the meaning of everything is nothing. But everything and nothing are human, material approximations themselves that do not describe the sea but are results of our standpoint as the river. As the human is exactly this, the flow from everything to nothing, the equality sign between the two; and like the equality sign, just a convention that can be anything.

Anything is true, everything goes, nothing is wrong.

Flowing towards the sea is as imminent as birth from it was. But as the sea and the starting point of the river are one, there are two ways of reaching it when viewed from the stream of the material world. You can either grasp the whole river of thought, or go towards the no thought state. And although going from the current state, downstream, towards the starting point, may seem initially the more accessible route (sometimes even the only one possible), we must not forget that in current times the flow is towards the sea, towards acquiring every possible material thought, that is the current attractor on the cycle.

And as it gets closer the river gets narrower, as the illusion of distance between the starting point and the sea fades, but the flow of water (thought, pure information, truth, love, total understanding - are all material approximations of the water) remains constant, so the speed at which it flows (the so called present) is radically accelerated (the case of this present).

Do not read what I have written and try to see what I have seen, to grasp what I have lived, as you would need a lifetime to do that and thus you would deprive yourself of yours. In other words not the material embodiment of the concepts is important, as that would be like art for the sake of art, an art that only the trained artists (self trained or trained through institutions) could understand, could read - a useless art. My words are not meant to be seen as the conveyers of the truth to you, as they only are conveyers of the truth to me, and not even a general me, a me very specific to a singular moment. They are meant to serve as an example that absolute truth can be obtained about singular moments, and by the means of the example teach yourself to think in a way (there is no “THE WAY”) that will allow you to be a receptor for the absolute truth corresponding to your singular moments. And by understanding the absolute truth for each of your singular moments you will attain peace, enlightenment, unity with yourself and the universe, the divine, nirvana, true love, or whatever you want to call it (I guess even shit-in-pants would be equally as descriptive of the state as enlightenment).

This is the human representation of the absolute truth of the singular moment of why I write. And the stream of such moments shall be your flow.

The first drawing I’m sharing from App 25 is actually a series showcasing the progression/evolution of one of our drawings.

This particular drawing took 6 days to complete. I saved a new version at the end of each day. The drawings are in reverse chronological order, the first being the final version (the text is positioned differently in the app).

I figured it was time to reacquaint my hand with the pencil considering I haven’t drawn anything in the last few months; we’ve been busy moving. I started the exercise inspired by the photo of an Asian woman, but somehow the woman turned out to look more like my godmother. She used to live in the house we recently moved into.

This update will fix issues with user interface software. The issues addressed include:

Fixes problems with concentration through relaxation.

Improves self awareness by adding a new feeling to the other basic ones added in the previous version (hunger,sleep,lust).

Teaches the machine to choose what it really wants to, and not what it THINKS it wants.

Caution:

By installing this update you will have to restart the system.

Note:

Use of this version of software is not subject to the original Software License Agreement. By installing this update you are consciously breaking the official regulations which might cause irreversible side-effects.

The most frequent side-effects:

In the first period of time you will be happy. You will not know what to do with this happiness, so you will stop working and worrying. Instead, you will start contemplating the ceiling or invisible objects in front of you. That will make you dream. And these dreams will make you happy. You will start enjoying all kind of little and useless details without asking yourself any questions: A smile from a stranger whom you smile back (without asking yourself what that stranger wants from you), a piece of good chocolate (without asking yourself how many calories it has), quiet (without asking yourself why no one is calling you), laying in the sun for hours with your eyes closed (without asking yourself why you’re not doing anything).

Money will suddenly mean less and less and the existence of a boss will seem funny and impossible.

When I found myself faced with the idea of writing the first post on this blog, I started to be very nervous. So I began to put down all kind of questions like: Why am I writing this? Who am I writing for?

I thought these questions are really mine and that they were the reason why I can’t start writing, that until I don’t find an answer to them I won’t be able to focus on creating.

Bullshit!

The only thing that was in my head was the fear that if I don’t create something cool and smart I would be laughed at. A fear that is constantly there in my head, that keeps me from doing all kind of things that I would like to do.

So when I finally recognized that to myself I thought: “Evrika!. Tomorrow I will post this no matter what!” First, because I have to get over this fear and second, because this was anyway what I had in mind for this blog. On the way to becoming human means on the way to combat all the fears that we have in our minds and that keep us away from ourselves. One fear down, one step closer towards the real us.

Until then, we are all just some machines controlled by our own fears and preconceptions of what we should be.

It’s been precisely a month since I’ve last sat down to write something new in the travel log (although I’ve got to admit that I’ve finished the last entry on Bali just recently) and last time I said that I’ll get started on Jogja. But that’s the whole point, even though we’re in a foreign culture halfway around the world and we still barely speak the language it feels like we’re home here - well, not entirely, but just enough so that it doesn’t feel like we’re travelers anymore. We’re living here, working here and facing the issues of daily life here. That’s why I’ve decided that most of my experiences in Jogja don’t belong in a travel log, at least not those that happened after the first three weeks when we moved to Apartmen Sejatra for the first time. I’ve committed to writing a series of separate articles about my time in Indonesia, what I’ve observed, what we’ve been through and what it’s all meant. The series will probably include things like Masuk Angin (literary Enter Wind or Trapped Wind as I’ve seen it translated) - The Successfully Marketed Made-up Disease; Whitening Obsessions; Javanese Food with a chapter on Tropical Fruit in Indonesia and many more - but all in due time.

I will of course have to come back to reflect on our experiences as travelers in Jogja and its surroundings in our first three weeks here and write about the Sultan’s Palace, The Water Castle, the Javanese classical dance and music, Malioboro, the Prawirotaman area, Borobudur, Prambanan, Parangtritis and the Kota Gede silver quarter. But as most of these visits took place approximately five months ago, I think I can wait another month or two, and we’re safely back in Romania, till I’ll convey them. In the mean time we’ll try to make the most of our remaining three weeks in Indonesia and hopefully go through new experiences worthy of this travel log.

We’ve been back in Jogja (Yogyakarta, Indonesia also known as Jogjakarta, Yogya or Djogdja) for almost three weeks now (man time flies here). This is where we had left for Bali more than a month ago, and here we had spent three months prior to our departure.

Before I get started on Jogja and on how it’s been here since we came back I just want to add a few more things about Ubud. We spent our remaining four days there quite nicely, taking long walks in the surrounding villages and the adjacent rice fields, further exploring the village center and the Sacred Monkey Forrest Sanctuary, shopping in the central market and enjoying balinese cuisine. Although we haven’t managed to find the postcard perfect terraces on our walks, which I’m sure were just around the corner, we got to see more flatter rice fields filled with loud and cheerful ducks and extremely colorful insects. There were almost no other tourists around there so personally I didn’t mind not having found the terraces that much. The main reason why we couldn’t explore further and why we probably missed the rice terraces, was mostly due to the packs of stray dogs that were all around the streets of the villages and they were visibly bothered by seeing us carrying our tripod and immediately started barking us and coming violently toward us trying to chase us away. Nothing actually happened and we managed to leave Bali without any dog related incidents (although I’ve read in a local newspaper that the rabies levels are up to those from the 1940’s), but we tried to avoid them as much as we could, especially when they were in packs of more than two, and this meant that we couldn’t see all the places we had intended to.

One of the best places for me from our whole trip to Ubud, and Bali in general, was the Monkey Forrest Sanctuary. The little fellows there, Balinese Macaques, were quite fascinating and I could have spend days observing and photographing them. Unfortunately, however, both of the times we visited, we got there a bit late, only an hour or so before sunset and closing time. The place is relatively small, it’s more like a park than a forrest, and considering there’s more than 300 macaques living there it can sometimes get quite crowded, although never uncomfortably so. Before we went everybody warned us that we should be extra careful with our things as they have a tendency to steal everything they see and that they can also get aggressive - we even read dire warnings about the monkeys in our travel guide. While I’m sure it’s not a bad idea to take some level of precaution and be careful around the monkeys I think the warnings and the panic surrounding them is a bit exaggerated. Yes, they can sometimes be unpredictable and yes, they have the tendency to steal stuff, but from what I saw in my couple of hours there, they were only attracted by food stuff, especially fruit. Otherwise they really don’t mind you, so I think that as long as you don’t provoke them and are not carrying any exposed fruit, let’s say for instance passion fruit in a transparent plastic bag like some Japanese tourists were, you and your belongings should be quite safe. We wanted to go back to the monkey forrest on one of the days before we left, for a proper visit and a photo session with the monkeys but unfortunately, as we were planning to make the visit in the afternoon (so as to have just the right light for taking photos - the “golden hour” as it’s called) the rainy weather in the last afternoons of our visit prevented us from doing so. Maybe we’ll go back sometime, or if not maybe we’ll find some other monkeys - I’ve heard there’s lots of them in Kaliurang, a resort on the slopes of mount Merapi about 30 km from Jogja.

The biggest highlight of our visit to Ubud, however, was probably the place where we stayed. After arriving there with a car that we took from Sanur for 100000 IDR (hard bargaining was involved) we first checked out some of the places that our driver recommended, but like it seems to usually happen with the recommendations made by locals they weren’t the best options - the first one was too crowded and noisy while the second one was a bit too expensive, and the price really didn’t match the value, especially in a place with so many really nice and cheap places to stay. So we set out to find a place that matched our needs of cleanliness and basic comfort in a nice, quite setting at a reasonable price. And that’s exactly what we found - we didn’t even have to look too hard, and after having checked out just three places before it, we found Lecuk Inn on Jalan Kajeng (Jalan means street in Bahasa Indonesia - it also has the meaning of to walk). A girl in her twenties greeted us after we passed through the gate of the Inn and showed us to a room in the back of their property. The room was very spacious and it had a bathroom the size of a standard room in a cheaper hotel, but probably the most impressive thing about the place was the enormous porch overlooking the beautiful tropical garden, and past it a patch of jungle surrounding the stream of the river that flowed in the valley below. The place was great and considering the porch had a big table that we could use as a desk it seemed like the ideal place for writing, something that we planned to catch up on while in Ubud. The only problem that made me be a bit hesitant at first was that the room seemed to be quite humid, but after I managed to get the price down to 125000 rupiah per night (about 13 USD), with breakfast for two included, I forgot all about the humidity. The included breakfast was also very nice, which made the whole deal even sweater - it consisted of a big fruit plate, tea and a choice of pancake, omelet or boiled eggs. Staying there was very nice, and I’m sure this was partially one of the reasons why we lost our interest in exploring the rest of Ubud in the first couple of days. The place had a very authentic and raw atmosphere to it, and you could spend hours just observing the wildlife that made its way to our garden from the nearby jungle - a great variety of birds, some of which were coming to feast on the big papaya tree in our garden, squirrels, that woke us up on our first morning there by making some very strange sounds, lots of colorful butterflies, huge wasps that sometimes could get a bit scary, frogs, snails as big as the open palm of an adult man, jumping spiders and other wondrously strange insects. We also got some surprises while staying there, some pleasant, some thrilling and some quite problematic. First of all, we were greeted by cats on our second day there, nice, friendly cats, that initially seemed like they were begging for food as they were very thin, but after several unsuccessful attempts to feed them, which included milk and canned corned beef, we realized that they were more interested in our company. Especially the young male (there was a young, grey, tabby male with white legs and a tricolored female, that seemed to be his mother), who always purred and tried to climb up my lap while I was writing and who waited for us on the bench when we were away. Eventually they drank some of the milk, and even tried some corned beef, but I think the giant red ants got most of it.

The second surprise was waiting for us in the bathroom on our second day there, right after we got back from the dance performance. It was a giant black spider, about 25cm across. We had heard stories from our friends here about these giant house spiders, and especially Ana was hoping that we wouldn’t get to meet one, but when it finally happened both of us were quite calm. I scared it with the tripod, as I didn’t want to kill it, and tried to get it out of the bathroom through the opened space in the sealing. The freakiest part about it was that it could jump pretty well. When I first scared him with the tripod he jumped from the floor about half a meter high and a meter in length, up on the wall. That was pretty impressive, and it kind of gave us goosebumps, so for the next week whenever we went to the bathroom we did it like 007 entering a room, waiting to be ambushed. We later found another spider about the half the size of the first one, but this time it was in our room, on a small flower-table. I tried to catch it and throw it out the window, but it got spooked and hid somewhere, so for the next 3 days we shared our bedroom with him. Then we spotted him again, in the same place, next to the flowers, but this time after multiple attempts I managed to catch him with a jar and set him free in the garden.

The last surprises came right before we left, as we were packing we noticed that our bag and some of our clothes were really moldy. Especially Ana’s backpack was covered with the green stuff that was giving off quite a distinctive smell. So as much as we enjoyed our stay there we left right on time, as if we would have stayed any longer the mold problem would have gotten worse and it could’ve affected our health.

We decided to fly back to Jogja, not that our bus trip to Bali had not been interesting but it was a bit too much to go through again. We had taken the decision to go to Bali kind of in the last moment, and because we didn’t make it to the last Executive Class bus leaving that day (the 7th of May), we decided to take an Economy Class bus leaving at 4pm, despite being warned repeatedly by our Indonesian friends to never take an economy class bus or train, especially on long distances. Well, we didn’t actually decide to take an economy class bus, we just decided to take the next bus leaving to Bali and it turned out to be an economy bus. And besides that, the bus was not going to go all the way to Bali and we had to switch buses in a small town, just after Probolingo. The first bus was an Economy AC, meaning of course that it had air conditioner, but this wasn’t always a good thing, as after a couple of hours it started being a bit chilly; it wasn’t a big problem for me but Ana, being less resistant to cold, was a bit affected as we were only wearing T-shirts - naturally, being in an equatorial country. It was funny though to see how the Indonesians, who are very sensitive to cold (and for them cold is anything under 25ºC), came prepared for the AC with thick clothes - most of them were wearing at least a pullover and some were wearing thick jackets and winter hats. I sometimes wonder how would these people react to really cold temperatures, something like the -25ºC we had to face in December and January in Romania, before coming to Indonesia. I especially ask myself this question when I see the thick winter jackets that some people wear here, and the knitted hats. Most of the clothing shops targeted at young people have these items on display here, and from what I’ve seen it’s sort of a fashion, as some of the girls even wear woolen gloves while ridding their bikes, but man, it’s really a messed up fashion. Getting back to the bus trip, however, I’ve gotta say that otherwise it was quite an experience. The whole thing lasted about 21 hours, about 12 hours in the first bus, crammed in between the very closely packed seats, with very little legroom and about 9 hours in the second one, a very basic bus, probably from the 1960s or ‘70s that was missing all of it’s top windows next to the passenger seats. When I first got on the second bus it felt like we were on a prison bus, transporting convicts to a concentration camp. On both buses, for extended parts of the journey, we had to deal with frequent stops, during which people who tried to get money from you in one way or another would get on the bus. On the first one it was lots and lots of sellers, sometimes comically numerous, especially on the length of road between Jogja and Solo. These guys (and gals - mostly older women) were trying to sell you all manner of stuff, mostly food, from boxes of donuts which they would put in your lap, to warm fried rice with tempe, with which they would touch your arm so that you could see that it was still hot, and everything in between: steamed shelled peanuts (the only thing we actually bought), bottles of soda, fried tofu, key holders, sunflower seeds, sweets, krupuk (shrimp or fish chips) and probably a lot of other stuff which I can’t really remember right now. The worst was in Solo bus station, where without any exaggerating, probably around 50 vendors got on the bus in what seemed to be an unending line, as a lot of them got on the bus through the front door, exited through the rear door and then came back to the front of the bus to get on again. The whole thing lasted between twenty minutes and half an hour and then after some time the whole situation became really amusing. I don’t know if the vendors had to share a part of their profits with the bus drivers as there seemed to be no other reason for the bus to be waiting in the station so long, except so that the vendors could unload some of their products to the passengers. We didn’t buy any food from the vendors, except for the peanuts, because we had bought some supplies from Jogja before leaving and we were hoping for a stop later on at a proper eatery where we could have a decent meal. Besides that, we didn’t know if the quality of the food could be trusted. At around 2 in the morning we got to Probolingo, where we stopped at a restaurant for a quick meal. We were quite happy about this for several reasons - first of all, it was good to be out of the bus seats for a longer while (previously the only other stop had been at a gas station/toilet which had been a huge relief for me as I was forcing my bladder to hold it in for the previous 5 or 6 hours - all that pee leaving my body made me feel like I could faint), secondly we were a bit hungry, but most importantly it was good to be out of the bus and not see the way the driver was driving it. We were seated in the second row, behind the bus driver, and the guy was a complete maniac. He was driving really fast on a very narrow lane, constantly honking his horn so that everything in front of him would get out of the way, through what seemed to be a continuous Javanese city. It was a huge populated area, stretching almost all the way from Jogja to Probolingo, although I strongly suspect that there was only a row of houses next to the road. Due to the way our bus was driven bikers had to get off the road several times so that they wouldn’t be hit. Even though our driver, like I said, seemed to be driving like a maniac, in retrospect this somehow seemed to be the norm for bus drivers in Java, as I remember one time we almost had a collision with another bus which was speeding down our lane after having overtaken two other busses - if it wouldn’t have been for our driver’s quick breaking instinct I’m sure we would have been involved in a crash, and although this was the most thrilling, there were several similar incidents throughout the trip. So like I said, we were happy to be out of the bus, unfortunately however this feeling was lost somewhere between getting our food and getting back on the bus, as the fried rice we got there (which is usually eatable anywhere in Indonesia, although quite predictable in flavor) was uneatable. Not long after our meal we had to change buses, and like I said before, the second bus was quite an interesting sight when we first laid our eyes on it. However, the real interesting part about riding the second bus was still to come. For the next couple of hours we had quite a pleasant ride through a hilly (probably volcanic) jungle landscape and then after dawn we had reached a small town from where I thought there couldn’t be long till the ferry crossing to Bali. But, boy was I wrong! Distance wise it may have been short, but we definitely didn’t get there fast. The main reason for this was that on a distance that I’m sure was under a hundred kilometers the bus made a very large number of stops. Some of the stops were made to pick up passengers as the bus was more than half empty when we departed. There’s a strange way of doing this on the economy class busses in Indonesia - the driver’s assistant hangs on the outside of the bus trough the door, holding on with just one hand and shouts the destination when the bus passes through the streets of a populated area. So this time in our case it went something like: Bali, Bali, Bali, Baliii! And if it just so happened that somebody walking on the side of the street would want to go to Bali, he or she would wave the bus down and it would stop. However though, most of the stops were not made to pick-up passengers, instead they were made, so that pengamen could get on the bus. Pengamen is the indonesian word for street performer or better said, public place performer, as they can be found almost anywhere there’s a chance of a bigger crowd and thus an opportunity for them to make some money. They perform in restaurants, either a whole show in one place or singing a song in one place, collecting the handouts and moving on to the next; in crowded intersections of big streets and in buses. The first time we encountered one was on our trip back to Jogja from Borobudur. It was actually two guys singing an indonesian song on a guitar and an improvised percussion instrument. These guys were relatively good so we didn’t understand at first why all our indonesian friends were complaining about the pengamen, but we were about to find out pretty soon. It’s hard to estimate exactly how many pengamen got on the bus on the last 100 km or so in Java but it must have been at least 30. Out of these about 2 were decent, most of the rest were very bad and at least one was really horrible (he was shouting awful sounds that had nothing to do with music and rattling on an improvised instrument). I had prepared some change from Jogja to give out to the pengamen, but I never would have thought there would be so many, so I was quickly left without. This led me to discover that some of these musical beggars can be quite annoying and even aggressive if you don’t give them anything. I remember one particular incident in which one of these guys started shaking Ana to wake her up so that she could give him money. All this, however, stopped when we finally crossed the Bali Strait and coupled with the really nice view of the crossing and more of the same after we crossed, made us really happy to have finally reached Bali.

Riding the bus between Java and Bali once was an interesting experience but twice would have been too much and because we had a cheap alternative, a bit more expensive then the bus, of course, but still cheap, at 4am in the morning of the 26th of May we took a taxi to the Kuta Airport from where we flew, with Lion Air (for about 40 US dollars each), back to Jogja. The 50 minute flight was quite enjoyable because of the really nice view we had from the window. The sun was just about to rise when we took off and it was a clear day with no clouds in sight so we could admire the spectacular Balinese and Javanese scenery, bathing in a brilliantly orange light, from 10000 meters above ground.

It’s been already three days since we’ve arrived in Ubud, but we still haven’t seen a lot of the place so far, as we had some urgent administrative matters that needed our attention especially now that we have better and relatively cheaper (compared to the 30.000 IDR an hour we were paying on Nusa Lembongan) internet access. That being said, my expectations about the place being a bit too touristy have been confirmed and even topped in some instances. At least when it comes to the more central part of the village-resort; but people come here also for the supposedly unspoiled village life in the surrounding area with countless intensely green rice terraces, which I’m looking forward to exploring more in the following days. The streets of what is known as central Ubud, however, are packed with galleries, souvenir shops, clothing shops - with a lot of international brands present, mini marts, pirated music and dvd shops (of which you can also find a large selection at the mini marts as well), spas and massage places, restaurants, serving a mix of asian and western cuisine, of which some look really interesting both in terms of menu and in terms of location (although the prices tend to be several times higher than what we were used to paying for a decent meal in Jogja). The place looks nothing like a village. This coupled with the ever present taxi drivers that are constantly offering their services - Taxi please…. Maybe tomorrow… I give you cheap price - are big set backs to the authenticity of the place. But so far nowhere was the loss of authenticity more visible than at the performance of classical Balinese dance we attended on Thursday evening at the Ubud palace. We attended the Legong Trance and Paradise Dance, which supposedly should have been some of the best in the Balinese repertoire. But we had a bit of a disappointment, as the whole thing seemed more like a mock-performance for tourists rather than something that had to do with authentic tradition. This impression was primarily generated by the attitude of the performers, with the dancers stopping from their routines to make jokes about the taxi drivers and to shake hands with the audience and the musicians constantly talking to each other and laughing during the show. We got there a bit late - well, not really late in the sense that the show had already begun, but late in the sense that we only got there 15 minutes before the start of the performance and the place was already packed - so we were seated in the front row to the left side of the stage, right behind the left side of the gamelan orchestra, so we closely observed the musicians constantly gossiping and seemingly laughing at the audience and the dancers, and their lack of interest or passion in the performance they were giving. At times it seemed almost as if their hands were moving automatically, after years and years of practice, and that their consciousness wasn’t involved at all. This, coupled with the fact that the performance was made up of shortened versions of the dances that seemed crammed together in an unbalanced manner, made for a rather disappointing experience. The shortening and adaptation of the dances, so that more of them can be fitted in a 2 hour interval, is rather tasteless in my opinion, and if you want to get a better sense of what I mean, just imagine how would you feel if you would go to a performance made up of shortened versions of the most famous western plays crammed together and, short bits of Shakespeare, Chekhov and Becket performed by visibly uninterested actors for audiences composed primarily of Asian tourists. More so, what would you think if this would be advertised as the best of western classical theater?

The javanese classical dance routine, that we saw at the sultan’s palace in Jogjakarta was a lot more impressive, maybe the moves weren’t as complex (or at least that’s what critics say) and it was also made up of shortened versions suitable for tourists, but the intensity of their performance, and the visible passion of all the artists, musicians and dancers created an atmosphere that the performance we attended here in Ubud couldn’t even aspire to. And I think, from what I’ve observed, that this is primarily a consequence of the fact that in Jogja the classical dance, and other arts and crafts such as the wayang puppet making, are being kept alive mostly for the sake of tradition, under the direct patronage of the sultan’s court and they would continue to be kept alive regardless of the number of tourists in the city; where on the other hand here the dance seems to be performed more for the sake of tourists and the income they generate. This was also visible in the admission price, in Jogja the dance performance was given free, on Saturday mornings, as part of the visit to the Sultan’s Palace, which costed 15000 IDR per person, where as here the price of the performance was 80000 IDR per person. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that 80000, around 9 US dollars, is an exaggerated price, although it seems a bit too much for Indonesia, what I’m suggesting is that the fact that the price here in Bali is more than five times higher says something.

Having said this, the fact that the central part of Ubud has become a touristic place may not entirely be a bad thing, especially if you consider spending more than a few days here. Because what this means is that you can be relatively close to nature, and the tranquility of a traditional village without giving up too much of the perks of modern life. Besides, even though most of the shops have the same wares consisting of cheap souvenirs and traditional dresses, a lot of them have some interesting and unique items on display, and I’m sure that if you have the time and patience to browse through them thoroughly, great deals on unique items can still be had.

We arrived a couple of hours ago to Ubud, in the southern hills of Bali, which so far seems like a delightfully rustic and natural place at heart even though at present it looks a bit overrun by tourists and all the modern facilities that they tend to desire. We haven’t yet explored the place except for our lunch trip but I’m looking forward to doing so.

We arrived here from Nusa Lembongan which proved to be a charming little island despite the couple of accidents I had - falling from a mountain-bike while coming down a steep slope at high speed, which resulted in a few cuts and bruises under my right knee and falling on the deck of a small boat (which was mainly the “captain’s” fault as he started the engines without saying anything beforehand) and hitting the stairway, which resulted in a couple of big nasty bruises. Besides my accidents Ana had a new eruption on her lower lip which proved again that the insect theory for our skin outbreak problems is at least questionable.

We witnessed a local cock fight and had a delightful snorkeling trip on our second day there - the 10th of May. The snorkeling costed 150.000 IDR - boat trip and snorkeling gear for 2 included, while the cock fight was free to see as long as you weren’t interested in gambling and could put up with all the noise made by the betting locals - which personally I found to be quite entertaining, certainly more entertaining than seeing a rooster die every few minutes. The cock fight wasn’t exactly advertised for tourists and we were among the very few non-locals there, but we went to see it after we found out about it from a local villager. Strangely, Ana wanted to see the cock fight more than I did. The whole thing seemed to revolve a lot more around the gambling and ritual of it all than the actual fight which only lasted a few seconds. The roosters were brought in baskets to the “arena” where they first had a blade tied to their left foot with a piece of red string after which they were put on display for the betting mob. Then they were incited one against the other and set loose. The actual fight that followed had just one round that lasted only 10-20 seconds before the winner was decided and the looser fell quickly to the ground from what seemed to be a sharp cut. However, we later found out that the blades were poisoned and it only took a small scrape for the match to be decided.

Cocks are matched up according to their size and perceived skill.

The fight is made short by the fact that each rooster has a blade tied to its leg, called taji.

The snorkeling trip was also really great, as there were a lot of different, colorful species of fish and other marine life to be seen, and the whole reef seemed to be in a pretty good shape. We went snorkeling to the Mangrove Reef on the north-eastern side of the island, and as it was Ana’s first time snorkeling, her reaction upon diving her head into the water and seeing all the marine life was one of sincere amazement, she even shouted WOA! through her snorkel.

Many of the local villagers have shifted from farming seaweed to tourism related activities, like offering snorkeling tours.

The lack of underwater photography equipment unfortunately meant that we could only take photos at the beginning and end of our snorkelling trip.

The third day was spent on a delightful, albeit exhausting bicycle trip around the island with two bikes we rented for 30000 IDR each from a guy who initially offered us some motor bikes for rent (as a lot of people on the island are doing). At first inspection the bikes seemed to be a bit weathered but in a decent enough condition, the only noticeable problems being a very narrow seat (which caused serious ass pains) and a weaker back break on one of them. We first headed towards the mangrove forest on the NE road and stopped for a morning swim and some photos of Gunung Agung (Bali’s tallest peak, looming at 3142m) and island wildlife on a small isolated beach close to the western edge of the forest. Then we headed out to the mangrove forrest proper which covers a big part of the NE side of the island. We explored for a bit the small local community there, and the edge of the forrest after which, as it was already noon, we took a rest and had a couple of drinks at a local warung with a great view towards the beach and the edge of the forest.

A mangrove seedling.

The fruit of this particular mangrove tree were covered with colorful beetles, probably trying to extract some form of nutrition from them.

Sign pointing the way to the small warung where we had our refreshments.

Then we cycled for another hour and a half or so till we came to the south of the island where we cooled down with a couple of drinks from a small shop. A couple of hundreds of meters down the road we took some photos of some seaweed farmers taking advantage of the low tide. Also taking advantage of the low tide were hundreds of small very colorful little crabs roaming about the dry seabed, probably looking for something to eat. They were approximately 5-10 cm in size, had orange or reddish feet and blue backs with different patterns.

This old man was turning the seaweed to make sure it dries on both sides.

Hundreds of small mud crabs can be seen exiting their burrows on the sea floor in search for food.

Afterwards we continued our trip, but as it was already past lunch time we thought it would be a good idea to stop for a meal at a small little warung on the side of the road, not far from the Lembongan - Ceningan bridge. We were attracted by the advertised grilled fish but we had to negotiate hard with the waiter till we got him to understand what we wanted (even though the sign outside the place was written in English). Despite this and the fact that it took ages for them to barbecue the fish, we had a wonderful lunch consisting of two wonderfully grilled and tasteful fish, a tuna and a jackfish served with delicious onion and chilly balinese sauce and rice.

The view from the eatery, overlooking the Ceningan Strait at low tide.

After lunch the most difficult part of our bike trip began - it was already around four o’clock when we finished lunch and we knew it was going to start getting dark in a couple of hours so we knew we needed to pick up the pace in order to get back to our hotel at Jungutbatu beach. What we didn’t know, however, was that if we wanted to continue following the coastal road back to the northern part of the island we had to climb a couple of steep hills. Due to our lack of training, an error I made while shifting gears (instead of setting my bike in the easiest speed for the climb I had set it in the hardest ) and the fact that after I tried to shift gears again my chain blocked and I couldn’t pedal anymore, we were already tired after the first hill and exhausted by the time we got to the top of the second. We were alternating between pushing our bike and actually riding it and after we got on top of the hill besides being exhausted we came face to face with one of our biggest fears - a pack of about 10 mean looking dogs coming down the street toward us. The stray dogs proved to be one of the biggest problems of our trip to Bali. There weren’t actually a real problem but because we grew up in Romania, where we have a street dog infestation problem and they sometimes get pretty violent, we tend to get more scared of dogs than the average person, especially when they’re coming towards you barking loudly. The dogs in Bali also have a meaner looking face, somewhat resembling that of a pit-bull and they’re pretty big (maybe a sign of the fact that people in this part of Indonesia don’t eat dog meat). So we stopped about 150 meters away from them for a couple of minutes to decide how to approach the dog problem, as we knew from back home that dogs really don’t like cyclers and have a tendency to chase them, but we couldn’t linger too much as the sun had already started to set and soon it would start getting dark. To our luck, the dogs on the top of the hill, like most on Nusa Lembongan didn’t seem to care too much about people and were pretty calm even when in a pack. So after seeing a couple of motorbikes pass by them, without generating any reaction from the dogs, we decided we have to take our chances and cycle through the pack. Fortunately nothing happened, they didn’t even seem to take notice of us, but I’m not sure. I avoided making eye to eye contact with them, as that can complicate things. After we got safely away from the dogs and we speeded down the hill, something happened that proved to be a real problem. I suspect we made the mistake that lead to the problem while we were descending the steep hill - Ana was descending in front of me and she had a bit of a problem managing a rough turn and had a small accident in which she scratched her arm while falling on a bush. Right after the turn there was a crossroad, with the road to the left continuing to go down sharply while the road on the right headed up the hill again. Without thinking to much about it, and given that there was nobody around to ask we took the road on the right as the one on the left seemed to be leading to a dead end somewhere on the coast - and this I think was the mistake that made us take a much longer route that almost got us stuck in the forrest at night. About halfway down we came to a cross road again and again we weren’t sure which way we needed to take, but this time there were some houses around and we asked one of the women there which was the way to Jungutbatu village. She pointed to the right so we went that way, but after a couple hundred meters Ana pointed out that she recognized the places from earlier; I wasn’t really sure so we kept on going but then we passed the place in the south where we had the drinks that noon. There wasn’t any doubt anymore, we had taken the wrong road and were now going in the opposite direction. At this point we got a bit uncomfortable, as it was about to get dark. I asked Ana what time it was and she told me it’s 5:30. I replied a bit angrily that it can’t be 5:30 as that would mean it’s actually 6:30, because we hadn’t adjusted the time on our mobiles after leaving Java, and it would already be dark. I checked and the time on the phone was indeed 5:30 - to this day I don’t know what happened, either the phone automatically set itself to Bali time and then back to Java time, because the next morning it was on Java time again, or the sun set later that evening. Still not being too sure what time it was, but being positive that it was about to get dark soon, we rushed back up the hill to the crossroad and we asked again, this time a couple of older men, if they knew which was the way to Jungutbatu, and if they could localize us on the map we had. We had a photocopied map which we got from our hotel, but unfortunately the map wasn’t very detailed and it only showed the coastal road, going around the island. The men assured us, after starring in confusion at the map, that both ways led to Jungutbatu. Because we knew the road on the right was the road we had come on that morning and because we were sure there must be a shorter alternative we took the road that lead left this time. But to our surprise, which we couldn’t manifest at that time, after only a couple of hundred meters the road intersected with the same road we had come on that morning, so by process of elimination, the shorter rout, that followed the coast must have been on the road leading left at the very first intersection. But because going back would have meant a steep climb and more uncertainty we decided to take the road we had come on that morning and try to get to our hotel before it got completely dark. And when I say completely dark, I mean it, there’s no street lamps on the island - except for a few on the main road of the village - it get’s pitch dark, so much so that you can barely see to half a meter in front of you. So you can understand why the “getting dark thing” bothered us so much. The cross-road was also the scene of an event that further complicated our situation. Right before the intersection there was a steep descent and being in a hurry as we were I decided to accelerate on the descent to gain speed and momentum. When we got to the intersection however, a motor bike came from the left, and Ana who was already going slower then me slowed down even more so I had to break suddenly to avoid crashing into her, because I couldn’t go around as the road was narrow and the motorbike was taking up the whole left side. The road was covered with sand and gravel, so breaking suddenly at high speed wasn’t the smartest thing - my bike destabilized and I was thrown into the air, landing face forward on my right side. About half of my lower right leg was scratched and bruised and I had three deeper wounds around my knee, made up of multiple cuts. I also had some deep wounds in my right palm, from putting my arm forward in order to break the impact, and a cut on my right elbow. The pain from my wounds was pretty bad but I had to pick myself up pretty fast so that we could continue and get back to our hotel before nightfall. The guy on the motorbike, coming from the left, had seen me fall and he turned around and stopped to see if I was ok and if we needed assistance. We found out from him that we still had about 3 km to go, so we had no time to waste. We were past exhaustion at this point but had to carry on as we were far from any inhabited zone and the road passed through wetlands and the mangrove forest and there wasn’t any kind of street lighting and we didn’t have lights on the bikes either. It was already almost dark and on top of that after the crash the back wheel of my bike was rubbing against the frame, so that pedaling was noticeably harder than before. This, coupled with the extreme exhaustion and the pain from my injuries slowed me down quite a bit, but we had to push on as hard as we could as visibility was already pretty low, and darkness had almost fell. It was pretty agonizing and I can’t really estimate how long it lasted ‘till we found the first paved road that led left, which was a different one from the one we had come on that morning, but we knew it was in the direction of the village, so we took it nonetheless. After taking it we hit a patch of sand and I couldn’t pedal anymore; I almost fell twice trying to move the bike, I was that exhausted. And after I finally managed to get going again I passed through a forested region, I took a turn right and came to a house, but when I looked back I couldn’t see Ana anymore. I called out for her, shouting as hard as I could several times, but I didn’t get any answer - these were the worst moments of the day for me. I couldn’t pedal anymore, so I turned my bike around and started pushing it, i called out for her a couple of more times and there was still no answer. I knew she couldn’t be far behind as I hadn’t gone too far from where we had stopped previously, so I started fearing for the worst. Being in a patch of forest didn’t help in that moment either, as it was darker and I could barely see; I thought that if she wouldn’t reply soon and I wouldn’t find her, I could go to the house and ask for help, because I saw some people sitting in the yard when I passed it, I even think one of them came out of the yard to see what was going on after he had heard me shouting. Luckily I didn’t have to ask for anybody’s help as she showed up pedaling slowly right as I was taking the turn back. She told me she had a horrible cramp in her toes and that’s why she couldn’t pedal or walk anymore or hear me shout for that matter. We somehow managed to get back on the bikes and carry on as we knew we still had some distance to go before we reached the village proper, but we didn’t know exactly how much. After about ten more minutes we finally came to the village, but because we had taken the first paved road to the left we were at the western end of the village and we still had some way to go to the hotel, where we had agreed to meet the guy who rented us the bikes. But, as if the long day and the events of the last part of it wouldn’t have been enough we took the wrong path towards the beach, as they kind of all looked the same, and wound up about a kilometer away from our hotel on the beach. After we had a little argument, as our moods were pretty affected by our situation, we decided not to go back on the path, but rather push our bikes through the wet sand on the beach - a pretty tiresome endeavor even for a well rested person in a good state of mind. But, anyway, we somehow managed to get there right as the last traces of sunlight were fading away, as the sun was setting into the ocean. It certainly was a day to remember and if it wouldn’t have been for the wrong turn and the accident it would have been a totally pleasant one. I treated my wound with some Betadine, which I got from one of the owners of the hotel (a nice, elderly Australian couple), as I feared an infection. We went to bed pretty early that evening (not hard to imagine why), after having a really nice meal consisting of a large chicken salad for Ana and a Chicken in Pineapple for me, literally bits of chicken breast in a whole pineapple.

The low tide reveals a rocky seabed, with little to no sand, in the strait between Lembongan and Ceningan. A shot which we took a couple of hundred meters after we had had our lunch.

A little girl who kindly invited us to see her house after she had seen us taking photos not far from it.

Due to the injury to my knee which seemed to get infected I had to avoid getting into the water (a hard task when you’re on a tropical island paradise ideal for snorkeling, diving and surfing - if you’re into that) and we had to cancel our diving plans. So we spent most of our remaining time on the island writing and shooting photos and videos of the wonderful landscape and the seaweed farmers. We are contemplating doing a documentary on the current division in the jobs of the island’s inhabitants and how that’s going to change over the next few years. At present 50% of its inhabitants are working in the tourism industry and 50% are still doing the semi-traditional seaweed farming. But, probably in the next few years, all the seaweed farmers are going to convert to working in the tourism industry as more and more developments are built. Seaweed farming is semi-traditional as, from what we found out from the locals, it was introduced to the island about 23 years ago by French cosmetics companies for use in their products. The algae the farmers grow is not native to their region, but it seems to grow pretty well there, or at least it did until a few years ago. In recent years, some of the farmers that we’ve spoken to, said that their yields have gone down by almost four times, as the seaweed previously matured, and was ready for harvest in 12 days, but then the development cycle increased to 26 and now, in the last few years to 45 days, probably mostly due to the pollution caused by all the boats now present in the shallower waters surrounding the island. This means that seaweed farming is not as profitable to farmers as it once was, as the selling price of the seaweed remained constant at around 6000 IDR per kilo (approximately 60 US cents), even though the yield per family dropped from around 1 ton per month to around 300 kilos per month (and this is not taking into account the investment the farmers have to make in the wooden spikes and the strings for growing the seaweed plus the boats and baskets for the harvesting and the plastic sacks for the drying process and the transport). This is the main reason why more and more people on the island are giving up growing seaweed and are thinking of finding new jobs in the tourism industry. What will this all mean to the small island and its inhabitants in the following years remains to be seen, and it could prove an interesting subject to follow in a feature length documentary. A curious fact about the seaweed farming was that even though the French cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies brought the algae to the island 23 years ago, the farmers still haven’t found a way to sell their harvests directly to these companies and have to go through a Chinese middle man in Bali in order to do so, which further reduces their profits. Before farming seaweed the islanders were working as sea salt extractors, a job that they say was a lot harder to do and which paid a lot less, so when the French companies came with the proposal of growing seaweed everybody on the island switched to this activity, at least ‘till the tourism boom started about ten years ago. Tourists were coming to the island even before the seaweed farming started, but back in those days there were no facilities and they had to camp (they were “living in plastic houses” as one of the locals said) and bring their own food. Also the journey from Bali lasted a whole day by rowboat, unlike the half an hour by speed boat or an hour and a half by public boat that are available now. However, now there are a lot of bungalows, hotels, restaurants and a host of other facilities meant to cater to the needs of the tourists. The sharp rise in the number of tourists in the last 15 years also meant that what was once an island with almost no traffic is today home to hundreds of motorcycles, out of which probably a large percentage are brought on the island to be rented out to tourists. Another concern is the volume of trash generated by the tourists, much greater than what the locals would have produced for their own needs, which is not shipped away from the island, but rather deposited in a landfill in the mangrove forrest. Although the arrival of the tourists might have also influenced the garbage disposal practices of the locals in a positive way, as before they came, we were told that most of the people just threw their garbage into the sea. A lot of the locals that don’t have anything to gain directly from the tourism industry still do this, a fact which is most evident in front of the seaweed farming huts, a part of the beach where few tourists go to. However, given Nusa Lembongan’s proximity to one of the world’s most popular tourist destination, Bali, which stands less than 15 km away, it’s a wonder that tourists started arriving on the island in larger numbers only about 10 years ago. A wonder that probably can be attributed to ignorance, laziness and the fact that the stimulus to come got higher as Kuta and other popular destinations on Bali got more and more crowded.

Seaweed is cultivated in three varieties; the reddish-brown one being the most expensive.

Farmers’ Beach

Tourists’ Beach

Farmers’ Huts

Tourists’ Huts

Farmers’ Water Activities

Tourists’ Water Activities

Some other highlights of our ten day stay on Nusa Lembongan were a boat tour around the island (when I fell and got the bruises) and the discovery of a delightful little family run warung, Ketut’s Warung, which serves great thai food in very large portions at a great price for Nusa Lebongan. At this place we also discovered a fun game called jenga which we played while waiting for our food and after finishing our meals and which involves stacking wooden blocks onto an increasingly unstable tower, till it collapses and the person who collapsed the tower declared the loser of that round. Other highlights were a time-lapse that we did of the low tide coming in, while standing in turns with an umbrella over the camera for six hours to prevent it from over heating; waking up at 5:30 in the morning and climbing the hill to the south of Jungutbatu, from where we took morning photos of the island with a stunning backdrop of Gunung Agung in Bali, while huge red ants were climbing all over us and last but not least an invitation to dinner we got from the guy who helped us find an accommodation right after we arrived on the island.

The dinner was great and it consisted of a big grilled tuna fish, rice and spicy cap cay vegetables with chicken - it was a huge meal and the tuna fish was particularly good as you could feel it was really fresh. The guy, who first introduced himself as Ketut (which seems to be a very common name here in Bali, later told us a different name which I’m having problems remembering) was quite an interesting character - he told us he has been working as a seaweed farmer since he was 9, helping out his parents, but now he seemed to cater more to the needs of the tourists and was planning to open a small warung on his beachfront family property. After we first met him and he helped us find accommodation, we met him the next day when he arranged us a pretty good deal for a snorkeling trip and a few more times while we were shooting photos and videos on the beach. We started talking and shared stories, he told us of his family’s situation and the situation of the island in general and we told him stories about Romania which were quite impressive to him as he realized that not all European white people are living easy, worry-free lives; and that’s when he decided to invite us to dinner. Ketut, or whatever his real name is, would make for a great subject for our documentary on the island’s situation, as he has been working as a seaweed farmer since he was 9 years old, right after the islanders first started growing the seaweed, but is currently making the transition to the tourism industry by opening his own warung (a warung is an Indonesian style small restaurant where prices are cheaper and the food is usually quite good).

I’m looking forward to returning to the island, either for shooting the documentary, or just for enjoyment as the accommodations were nice, clean and cheap and the food was very good, even though, as all goods, it was bit more expensive as everything needs to be brought to the island from Bali. For the first 8 nights we stayed at Linda’s Bungalows for 100.000 IDR per night (breakfast not included), a nice place run by an elderly Australian couple who make sure everything runs properly (well, everything except cleaning the rooms on time which the staff seem to forget and need to be reminded of). The place also has an attached restaurant with great food which they advertise as being the best on the beach, and somehow I tend to believe them. The last two nights we really enjoyed the tranquil atmosphere of Secret Garden Bungalows (125.000 IDR per night, breakfast not included), a remote and very quiet place with lots of greenery, a semi-outdoor bathroom and great hammocks for relaxing. The room was maybe not as nice as the one at Linda’s but we didn’t mind as we had a big terrace, and a lot more space in the garden in front of the bungalows.

Update:

We haven’t, as of yet, made the feature film documentary about Nusa Lembongan we were considering, however we made an iPad app based on the photos we took and the short documentary we edited from the footage we shot while there.

We are now on Nusa Lembongan where we arrived four days ago, on the 9th, departing from Sanur on the south eastern coast of the island of Bali. We spent the previous night in Sanur, as the cost of coming here with a charter speed boat would have been twice as high as a night of accommodation in a cheap homestay in Sanur plus the fare for the public ferry boat. Sanur wasn’t that interesting, as it seems to cater mostly to elderly expats and “fancy” tourists. And because the action that day seemed to be very slow, the massage ladies and the other beach activity vendors were quite annoying.

We spent the night of 8th /9th of May in a cheap not so clean place, but which was only 80.000 IDR and was very close to the beach and the place from where the boats departed to Nusa Lembongan, which we took the following morning.

A panoramic shot of the island of Lembongan from atop the hill next to Jungutbatu. View of the island’s northwestern coastline, Jungutbatu village and the island of Bali in the distance. Seaweed lots are visible as dark rectangles in the water.